Beyond opens office in Western Australia

The Australian prodco has opened an office in Perth, Western Australia called Beyond West, to be headed by executive producers Harry Bardwell and Ron Saunders.

Australian prodco Beyond Screen Productions (BSP) has opened an office in Perth, Western Australia, called Beyond West.

The company has entered into a trio of co-development and coproduction deals with Western Australia-based producers, including Melissa Kelly at Factor 30 Films, Kelrick Martin at Spear Point Productions, and Russell Vines at Zinc Finger.

Under the agreements, Beyond will provide production and legal advice, accounting and management support during development, and act as coproducer on each project. Beyond International will provide sales and marketing support through offices in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland.

Executive producer Harry Bardwell will oversee the projects and coordinate business between their teams and Beyond’s Sydney office. Ron Saunders will also serve as an executive producer.

“We are looking at any genres of material that are likely to work in the Australian market ranging from animated shorts through TV documentaries and factual series, kids programming to TV, digital platform and theatrical drama/low budget features,” Beyond West’s executive producer Harry Bardwell told realscreen. “If a non-scripted project has market support and could work as an Australian coproduction, Beyond West would definitely look at it.”

“We have been impressed by the growing pool of talented filmmakers in the West for some time, and have been examining ways to do more work there, both through coproductions and in international distribution,” Mikael Borglund, CEO and managing director of parent company Beyond International, added in a statement. “Opening an office in Perth will allow us to work much more closely with local producers.”

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About The Author

Daniele Alcinii is a news editor at realscreen, the leading international publisher of non-fiction film and television industry news and content. He joined the RS team in 2015 with experience in journalism following a stint out west with Sun Media in Edmonton's Capital Region, and with communications work in Melbourne, Australia and Toronto. You can follow him on Twitter at @danielealcinii.